


A Debt of Feathers

by Kiraly



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13726638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly
Summary: They said, do not go into the forest alone.They said, do not leave the path.They said, do not interfere.But Reynir did, and what he found there flung him into a dark secret far older than him. And maybe, just maybe, a love to make the secret worth unraveling.(Reynir/Onni Tam Lin AU)





	A Debt of Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> Fun story: almost as soon as I started writing this, I remembered that lilithqueen already wrote a Reynir/Onni Tam Lin AU, called [_among the roses red_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7311370). (It's explicit, so proceed with caution). This story is quite different though, so hopefully you'll enjoy it too!
> 
> Another fun story: Originally I planned to have this finished by the end of October. Ha. Ha ha ha.

_ Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.  _

The hall clock struck the hour, and Reynir pushed back from his desk and stretched. He’d been studying for so long that the words were starting to blur on the page in front of him, and he had hours more to get through tonight. “Go to the Academy,” he grumbled, “Get an education! You’ll learn so much!” And maybe he would, if the information didn’t run out of his ears as fast as he took it in. For now, it was time to take a study break.

None of his fellow students were around in the lounge or the tiny shared kitchen, so he left the building on his own. The sun set earlier every evening at this time of year; if he wanted to go for a walk before dark, he couldn’t wait for company. He made his way toward the southeast corner of campus, leaving the buildings behind. When he reached the edge of the woods, he paused.

People told all kinds of stories about the forest. Some of them were perfectly ordinary: just yesterday he’d heard the girl next to him in class whispering with her friend about secret kisses beneath the sheltering leaves. But the rest...the rest were odd, and spoken in hushed voices for other reasons entirely.  _ Be cautious,  _ they said.  _ Watch your step—don’t stray from the path, no matter what! Be polite, even if no one is watching. Don’t go alone. And never, ever go at night.  _

Reynir was, for the most part, an obedient person. But for some reason, the woods drew him in, and he couldn’t always find someone to walk with him. He  _ was  _ smart enough not to go at night, of course. It’d get darker faster under the trees. He could get lost. “I won’t be long,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he meant to reassure himself or the countless people who’d warned him about the wood. “I’ll be back before dark.” He glanced again at the sinking sun, then continued on his way.

* * *

 

Reynir was lost.

He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. The path had been easy to follow at first, clearly marked and with plenty of interesting trees that  _ should  _ have helped remind him of where he’d been. But then he’d heard a noise above him—some kind of bird call, maybe? —and looked up to find the source. He couldn’t see anything though, and when he looked back at the path, nothing was familiar. And now the shadows were getting longer.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll just turn around and go back the way I came,” he said. But when he turned, the path split off in two directions. “What? That can’t be right.” For a moment, he heard a sound like distant laughter. Then it got louder, and it wasn’t laughter at all but instead the shriek of an animal in pain. And then it was drowned out by a chorus of barking.

“Hey!” Reynir made a beeline for the noise. He didn’t even notice that he’d left the path until he hurtled over a fallen tree, and by then it was too late to care. And anyway, what else would he have done? There was an animal hurt somewhere. He had to help.

He burst into the clearing and nearly tripped over a dog. They were everywhere, milling around and barking their heads off. He was just in time to see one of them dart forward to seize a bedraggled pile of—fur? Feathers?—when it let out another weak scream.

“NO!” Without thinking, Reynir snatched the closest object to hand and strode forward, beating the dogs back. “DROP IT! BAD DOG!” The dog growled, all bared teeth and blazing eyes, but Reynir had dealt with worse. He hadn’t spent the first twenty years of his life on a farm without learning  _ something  _ about animals. “BAD!” He smacked it on the nose with the object in his hand, which turned out to be a stout wooden stick. The dog retreated, dropping its burden to the ground.

“Go on! Get!” Reynir shook his stick at all the dogs for good measure. “Go home!” 

Amazingly enough, the whole pack turned tail and fled, disappearing into the trees as though they’d never been there. Reynir barely spared them a glance. He dropped the stick and stooped down to examine the creature he’d rescued.

At first, he couldn’t tell  _ what  _ it was. Some bird, judging from the feathers, but it was  _ huge!  _ Reynir cautiously touched a protruding wing, and it emitted a feeble squawk and opened its eyes.  _ They  _ were huge, too, and—was blue a normal color for an owl’s eyes? Because on further inspection it was clearly an owl. And it needed help.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Reynir said. He kept his voice low, hoping to soothe it. “I’m going to take good care of you. Those dogs won’t bother you anymore.” It was strange that they’d been harassing it in the first place; the dogs he knew wouldn’t attack a wounded animal for no reason. He couldn’t understand it. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

The owl let out a faint protest when he made a nest of his sweater and carefully lifted it in. It didn’t struggle though—maybe it was too weak—and it didn’t use its razor-sharp beak or talons on him. It just lay there, fixing him with a fierce blue glare, the whole time he was carrying it home. Somehow, the path was completely clear this time. Before he knew it Reynir was at the edge of the forest, stepping onto the campus lawn just as the last rays of the sun slipped away. 

“That’s odd too,” he told the owl, as he hurried toward his dorm. “I could have sworn it was much later. I guess the trees were playing tricks with the light.”

The owl merely let out a moan and ruffled its feathers. Its eyes slipped closed.

Back at the dorm, Reynir yanked out one of his dresser drawers and padded it with a blanket before settling his new friend inside. Then he got the first aid kit that his parents had insisted he bring with him and set to work. He’d never fixed up an injured owl before, but he remembered bits and pieces from his childhood. His sister Hildur had brought home a constant stream of baby birds, and even a raven with a broken wing once. Under HIldur’s expert care, it had lived to fly again. Reynir was no Hildur, but he would do his best.

Once he’d swabbed out the cuts with disinfectant and determined that the major wing bones weren’t broken—as far as he could tell—he packed more sweaters around the owl and went to the kitchen. A search of the cupboards and fridge revealed a desperate need for groceries, but he found some of his mother’s homemade mutton broth in the freezer. It would be better than nothing, anyway. Thankfully, his first aid kit had an eyedropper and a pair of tweezers, so once the broth was warm he oh-so-carefully eased the owl’s beak open—it stirred, but didn’t fully wake—and squeezed a few drops into the opening.

The owl flinched. Its eyes opened wide, and it exploded into motion, hopping upright and away from him so fast it overbalanced. Its feathers fluffed up so that it looked twice its usual size. And then its eyes  _ glowed,  _ and it got even bigger...and then it  _ changed _ . One minute, Reynir faced an angry, injured owl. The next, he was gaping at a man in a feathery cloak, who sprawled on the floor with rage and confusion written all over his face.

“Who are you? What...what did you do to me?”

Reynir, in a moment of brilliant wit, said, “You...you were an owl!”

The man ignored him. He sat up, staring at his hands, and then his eyes lit upon the bowl of broth. “You did this to me! You fed me  _ human food.  _ Why would you do that?!”

Again, Reynir had only the obvious answer. “I didn’t know what owls eat!”

“Owls!” The man shook his head. “I don’t mean that! Don’t you know anything about the rules?”

“Rules?” Reynir blinked. “You were an  _ owl,  _ and now you’re a  _ person.  _ That doesn’t follow any rules I know about!”

The man groaned and buried his face in his hands, giving Reynir a better view of his hair. The pale silver strands were as ragged as the rest of him, but soft, like downy feathers. Reynir had a weird urge to touch it, which he resisted. There were scrapes and cuts all over the man’s exposed skin—he wore pants and a sleeveless shirt beneath his feather cloak, both looking worse for the wear—and Reynir could see blood under his fingernails. When the man looked up, his eyes were glowing again.

“You helped me without asking for anything in return. You healed me, and fed me human food.” He spoke slowly, as though Reynir was a child. “By the rules of the Fair Folk, you have a claim on me.”

_ Fair Folk.  _ The words held little meaning for Reynir; he half-remembered some bits of childhood stories that mentioned them, but nothing to do with owls turning into men.  _ Must be some kind of magic I haven’t studied yet.  _

“I don’t know about that,” Reynir said, fiddling with the end of his braid. “I was just trying to help. Are you okay? Did those dogs bite you?” Could birds get rabies? Could they get rabies if they were also a person?

With a sigh, the man shook his head. “I will survive. But you should not have interfered! The Wild Hunt will be angry now.”

Another set of words that meant nothing. “The wild—you mean those dogs? But they were going to kill you!”

“They would not do anything to disrupt Her plans. She wouldn’t like that.” The man stood, wincing as he unfolded from the floor, and hobbled over to the window. “She will not like this, either. Take care, mortal man.”

“Reynir.”

The owl man whipped around. “What?”

Reynir swallowed hard. “Reynir Árnason. My name.” And then, because everything was so strange already and he really wanted to know, he said: “And what is yours?”

He expected another scathing response, but instead the man slumped against the wall and closed his eyes. “Oh, foolish mortal. You give all your secrets away and ask all the wrong questions.” When he looked at Reynir again, nothing remained of the blue glow. His eyes were the grey of a departing storm. “I am Onni. I owe you that much, for saving me.” He straightened up and turned again to face the window. It was dark now, all traces of the sun hidden away. In the light of the waning moon, Onni looked a thousand years old and incredibly young all at once. “I should go.”

“What?” Reynir scrambled to his feet. “You can’t! You’re still weak, you could get hurt!” He caught Onni’s arm, intending to pull him away from the window and talk some sense into him. But instead he found himself shoved against the wall, held in place by a steel grip on his shoulders. Onni glowered up at him.

“Weak, am I? And what protection do you think you can offer me? Your walls and windows won’t stop Her.” He leaned in close. “You can’t even protect yourself from me.”

“Do I need to be protected from you?” Reynir asked. His heart was beating fast—Onni was  _ strong,  _ for all that he was still unsteady on his feet and bleeding in several places—but he didn’t feel unsafe. Feeling greatly daring, Reynir reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Onni’s forehead. Onni flinched, and a hint of red tinged his cheeks. “I’m sorry for making assumptions. All I meant was, it’s late, and you’ve been injured. Would it be so bad to rest a while before you go?”

Onni looked away. Slowly, he lowered Reynir until his feet touched the floor and relinquished his hold. “I suppose there’s no harm. You cannot keep me past sunrise, though.”

That didn’t sound so bad. The sun rose later every day, too. “All right,” Reynir agreed. He touched Onni’s arm—gently, this time—and steered him away from the window. Onni made no protest as Reynir led him to the bed and persuaded him to sit. His eyes narrowed when Reynir picked up the first aid kit again.

“What now? You already used that.” He pulled his cloak over his chest in a protective gesture.

Reynir brushed aside a stray feather. “Yes, when you were an owl. It was hard to see the extent of your injuries. Take your shirt off?” He used the tone his mother always had, when one of her children was hiding something. It was a request, but not really.

It worked on Onni, too. “If you insist.” He set aside his cloak and stripped off the ragged remains of his tunic. Reynir hissed in sympathy when he saw the patchwork of bruises, but the real worry was the long gash across Onni’s ribs. It bled sluggishly, and Reynir could see a few threads from the shirt left behind.

“That wasn’t caused by a dog,” Reynir said. It was too straight, too clean. And now that he was looking—it was hard not to look, Onni’s chest and arms were all lean muscle—he could see older marks, white scars threading through the bruises. He touched one with a careful finger. “Neither was that.”

Onni shivered. “No. It wasn’t.” He pushed Reynir’s hand away, and the brief touch sent a shiver through Reynir, too. “Are you going to stare, or are you going to use that?” He pointed to the first aid kit. Reynir sighed and set to work.

By the time Reynir finished dressing his wounds, Onni had relaxed enough to stop jumping every time Reynir touched him. His eyes drooped, and his head dipped forward. Reynir smoothed the bandage around Onni’s ribs one last time, then stepped away and gestured at the bed. “All right. You should be set, at least for now. I should probably change the bandage before you go tomorrow, but it’s okay to sleep now.” He packed away the last of the kit and returned it to the shelf. “I’ll be back in a minute, I’m going to borrow some pillows from the common room.” He had a few spare blankets, so he’d be just fine on the floor. 

“Pillows?” The drowsiness dropped away from Onni. “Why?” He got to his feet.

“No, no, don’t worry! They’re for me, I’m leaving you the bed.” Reynir put a hand on Onni’s shoulder to make him sit again. Onni didn’t budge. “Honestly,” Reynir said, “You’re injured. You’ll sleep much better on a real bed. One night on the floor won’t kill me.”

But Onni held firm.  _ “That’s  _ what you meant, when you asked me to stay?” He grabbed a handful of Reynir’s shirt and pulled him closer. “Bandage me up, put me to bed?” He shook his head, but he didn’t look angry, only confused. “I don’t understand you at all. Is this what mortals are like now?”

Understanding hit Reynir like a tidal wave, and he could feel his face turning crimson. “Oh! You thought—that I—” It was too embarrassing to finish the thought. Sure, if he’d seen Onni around campus he definitely would have  _ thought  _ about something like that—especially now that he’d seen him with his shirt off—but he hadn’t been mentally prepared for that sort of thing when he’d brought an injured owl home. “I mean, it’s nothing against you! I just...you’re hurt, and you were a bird, and...it wouldn’t be right to expect  _ that.  _ You don’t owe me anything, I just wanted to help!”

Onni’s fingers tightened. “But I  _ do  _ owe you. I told you. I’m in your debt.”

“But you don’t owe me...sex, for saving your life.” Reynir shuddered. “I won’t do it for that.”

Onni frowned, then flattened his hand. Warmth radiated from it, heating Reynir’s chest through the fabric. “But you would do it, if it wasn’t for that.” It wasn’t a question. 

“You need  _ rest,”  _ Reynir protested. “It’s not about what I want or don’t want, you’re tired and recovering and you need to keep up your strength—” He was babbling now, and he couldn’t look Onni in the eyes. 

“Reynir.” A hand on his chin, tipping his face down. “I can manage my own strength. I know my limits, and what I want.” Onni caught his gaze and held it. “Do you?”

Reynir let out a shuddering breath. “Of course I want it. But only if you do.”

In answer, Onni leaned in and pressed a kiss to Reynir’s lips, soft and warm in all the ways his words were not. Reynir answered with a kiss of his own, only a little shaky from nerves and restrained laughter. He wrapped his arms around Onni, careful of the bruises, and Onni ran his hands along Reynir’s jaw and buried them in his hair. 

“Don’t sleep on the floor tonight,” Onni breathed between kisses.

“All right,” Reynir agreed. After a while, it wasn’t so hard to put aside thoughts of magic and curses and men who turned into owls. And it turned out that the bed was plenty big enough for two.

Later, Reynir ran his fingers idly through Onni’s hair and fought off sleep. “Do you have to go by sunrise?” The words hung like a portent.

“I must,” Onni said. His fingers traced a pattern over Reynir’s heart.

“Will we see each other again?” In the dark, in the quiet comfort of a familiar bed suddenly shared, the whole improbable scenario felt like a dream about to end. Reynir wanted to keep dreaming.

“If you look in the right places,” Onni said. “And don’t forget, I still owe you a favor.” He no longer sounded bitter about the thought.

“I don’t want you to go,” Reynir said, even though he knew it would happen. “I don’t want to wake and find you gone.” Even as he said it, he could feel sleep pulling him down.

“It will be easier this way,” Onni said. The touch of his hand already felt less like skin, and more like feathers. “Just remember what I told you. You might find a way.”

Reynir dreamed of trees, of walking on top of an ocean while wrapped in a feathered cloak. When he woke, the window was open and Onni was gone. A single feather rested on the windowsill.

* * *

 

Reynir went back to the forest the next day, and the next, and the day after that. There were no signs of Onni: no misleading paths, no injured owls, no Wild Hunt. The wood was just a wood, cool and dark and quiet save for the sounds of small creatures in the underbrush. Reynir grew bolder in his efforts. He left the path deliberately, remarking to himself—or whatever might be listening—that he sure hoped he wouldn’t get lost. In the stories, such things were sure to lead to trouble. But nothing happened. The forest, for all its trickery, did not seem to want him.

The autumn sun gave way to a week of rain. After one day of stubbornly trudging through sodden piles of fallen leaves, Reynir retreated indoors to look for answers elsewhere. The library housed a surprising amount of information on the Fair Folk—he even found mentions of the Wild Hunt here and there. But the books said nothing of men turning into owls, and the name “Onni” didn’t yield any results. Even so, Reynir wasn’t going to give up so easily. When the sky cleared, his feet carried him back to the woods.

He wandered the paths until he was reasonably sure no one would stumble on him by accident. He sorted through the items in his backpack: a bottle of milk and a bowl to pour it in, a handful of bread rolls from the dining hall, and some brightly-colored ribbons. He arranged these on the ground around him. Last of all, he pinned a little bundle to his shirt collar. Twigs of ash and rowan, a sprig of holly, and the feather from his windowsill. Signs of protection, and a favor owed. Maybe they’d help.

Preparations complete, Reynir took a deep breath. “Onni. I know you’re here somewhere. Please answer me.” Silence. He tried again. “Onni. Will you come out?” Still no reply, but the silence had taken on a listening quality. One last time: “Onni of the forest. Answer my call.”

The wind whispered in the trees, and gradually the noise grew louder and louder. Soon it wasn’t wind at all, but the sound of hooves striking the earth. A line of riders and hunting hounds appeared on the path, moving at a good clip. The steeds were decked in fluttering ribbons, and their riders wore sweeping hooded cloaks over fine riding leathers. Masks hid their faces, carved animals with cool or cruel or clever expressions. If they caught sight of Reynir, they gave no sign.

“Wait!” They thundered past him. Soon the whole line would disappear down the path, and he’d be no closer to solving his riddle. “No!” As the last rider neared, Reynir lurched forward and did something incredibly stupid. He jumped, caught the pommel, and heaved himself onto the saddle. Or at least, that was the idea. In actual fact, he only managed to send both himself and the rider over the other side and off the horse. They landed hard, rolled, and came to a stop in a cloud of dust.

Reynir recovered first. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking!” He crawled over to the rider, who wheezed and tried to roll away. “Let me help you—here, this will make it easier to breathe.” He loosened the mask and pushed the hood back. The rider glared up at him.

“What,” she said, then paused to cough and suck in another lungful of air, “Did you do that for?” She looked familiar—silvery hair, blue-grey eyes—but she wasn’t the person he was looking for. Reynir swallowed his disappointment.

“I’m so sorry, it was the only thing I could think of! I’m looking for someone.”

“And you found him,” said someone behind them. Reynir turned, and there was Onni.

He looked different in the light of day. Maybe it was the confident way he held himself, all traces of confusion gone. Maybe it was the stubborn set to his jaw, or the cold disdain in his eyes. Or perhaps it was the fact that he sat astride a tall white stallion, dressed in fine clothes of silver and white. No sign of feathers or old wounds. He continued on, not giving Reynir a chance to speak.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded. “And why have you pulled my sister from her mount?”

“I—” Reynir looked at the fallen rider. “Sister? Oh. Wow. It’s nice to meet you! I mean, sorry, again, it was all a big misunderstanding—”

“Reynir!” His name on Onni’s lips—a demand for attention. “What is wrong with you?”

Reynir sat up. “Well, I couldn’t think of any other way to find you! You didn’t exactly leave a phone number.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to look for me?”

Reynir thought about their last sleep-muddled conversation. “No, I don’t think so.” If anything, Onni had hinted that Reynir  _ should  _ look for him. 

Onni sighed. “You’re on a dangerous path.”

“So?” He’d spent far too much of his life being protected. It hadn’t mattered before—there’d been no reason to question it. But things were different now. “It seems like you’re in danger, too. I just want to help.”

“Help? You?” The incredulity in Onni’s voice stung. Onni must have seen the effect his words had, because he lowered his eyes and amended, “I’m sorry, but this is far bigger than either of us. I’m not sure there’s any way to fix it.”

Reynir wasn’t ready to give up just yet, though. “There must be. I’ll find a way! Please, just tell me how to help you.”

The horses fidgeted, and some of the other riders steered their mounts in impatient circles. Time was running out. Onni squared his shoulders. “There might be something. But you’ll have to figure it out for yourself.” He wheeled his horse around, but spared one last look at Reynir over his shoulder. “The full hunt rides on All Hallow’s Eve. Don’t look for me before then.” With that he rode off to the front of the line of riders.

Reynir watched him go, and only woke up to his surroundings when a bridle jingled behind him. He turned to find Onni’s sister still there, lifting her foot into the stirrup. Without a word, Reynir sank to his knees and offered his cupped hands to help her up. She accepted, and favored him with a small smile when she found her seat.

“You are courteous,” she said. It was probably the closest thing to a “thank you” he would get from one of the fair folk. “It’s a pity you seduced my brother and not me.” He felt himself blushing, but she kept going as though flirtation was not her goal. “If you had, that tumble might have broken the Hotakainen curse once and for all.”

“Broken the...what?” 

“You had the right idea,” she said, “but the wrong sibling. Good luck with Onni. If you manage to catch him, you’ll have to hold on tight.” 

Reynir fumbled for the right question to ask, but it was no good; by the time he opened his mouth, she and the rest of the riders were gone. They left only questions in their wake.

* * *

 

The next morning found Reynir back at the library.

“You again?” The librarian asked, glancing up from a stack of books. “What are you looking for this time? Werewolves? Ghosts?” From anyone else, it would have sounded like she was making fun of him, but her face showed only simple curiosity. Plus she’d spent hours helping him find books on the Fair Folk, and had mentioned her own research more than once. As far as Reynir could tell, she just really liked digging for answers.

So Reynir smiled and said, “No, not exactly. I’m looking for anything about curses. Umm, how to break them, I mean! I don’t want to curse anybody.” And he probably couldn’t anyway, even if he tried. “Also I was wondering if there’s a way to look up...a person?”

“A person? You mean a historical record?”

Reynir shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I...maybe. All I have is this name.” He passed her a piece of paper, where he’d written out the word Onni’s sister had said to the best of his ability.  _ Hotakajnen? Hotakanin? Hotakainen?  _

“Hmm.” The librarian studied the scrap. “Tell you what, I’ll find you some books about curses and then look into this, okay? It might take a while.” Reynir agreed, and so the search began.

Breaking a curse, Reynir soon discovered, was not as easy as finding the Fair Folk in a magic forest. The books contradicted each other, or went on rambling tangents about magical mechanics without actually explaining anything. Some of the authors seemed more interested in casting curses than breaking them. But after a while, it became clear that he’d need more information if he had any hope of helping Onni. If only he had some clue about the cause! From what he could tell, some powerful Faerie mage had a hold on Onni, and that had something to do with the shapeshifting and the Wild Hunt. But without knowing why Onni was in her thrall—or even knowing if Onni was human at all—he was powerless to help him.

He was slumped over the table, face-down on a ballad about some girl who had sex with a faerie and got pregnant, when the librarian returned.

“Studying hard, I see,” she said. “Not finding what you’re looking for?”

“Not really,” Reynir admitted. “A few suggestions, but nothing solid.”

The librarian nodded. “Well, maybe this will cheer you up. I found a few mentions of that name you asked about in the newspaper archives. There’s not a lot, but it’s...well, I’ll let you read it.”

The first article was older than Reynir, according to the date in the corner and the yellowing pages. It was a story about how a man named Ukko-Pekka, missing and presumed dead for years, had suddenly returned. He hadn’t, according to the article, said anything about where he had been or what he’d been doing. He’d simply walked out of the forest one day and gone back to his normal life. At the end of the story, almost as an afterthought, it mentioned that his twin sons appeared to be happy and healthy.

The next article was also about Ukko-Pekka, but this one was an obituary dated ten years later. A tragic affair, they called it. Suspected foul play, especially considering that his children were nowhere to be found. Local authorities had formed search parties, and members of the public were encouraged to keep an eye out for the kidnapped boys: Juha and Jukka Hotakainen.

“Hotakainen!” Reynir said. “Do you think they could be related?”

The librarian simply waved her hand at the rest of the papers. “Keep going.”

Oddly enough, the next article dated over a decade after the previous one: it was simply a wedding announcement for a Juha Hotakainen and his new wife, Anne-Mari. 

“Is it the same one?” Reynir asked. “What about the kidnapping? Where did they find them?”

“I don’t know,” the librarian said, and her face twisted with annoyance. “There’s no record at all, and usually with something like a kidnapping there’d be  _ some  _ news. It’s like they disappeared, and then showed up years later for the wedding.”

Reynir peered intently at the photograph that accompanied the article. It was hard to make out any details in the grainy image, but the man did look familiar. He  _ could  _ be related to Onni. And his wife resembled Onni’s sister, a bit. With a sigh, he turned to the final piece of paper.

_ Tragedy On The Road! Twin brothers and their wives perish in car accident. _ _   
_ _ Early Sunday morning a head-on collision took the lives of four family members. Juha, Anne-Mari, Jukka, and Tuulikki Hotakainen, returning home from an evening with friends, were struck by another vehicle. Despite the best efforts of first responders, none survived. The other driver fled the scene and has yet to be found. Anyone with information that may aid the investigation should contact the local police. _

_ The Hotakainens are survived by three children—  _ But there the letters became illegible, just a smear of ink. It was impossible to tell what names had once been there.

“A misprint,” the librarian said when he pointed it out, “some kind of flaw with the printer. I called the newspaper office and asked them to check their archives, but their copy is the same.”

“So...no one knows who the kids were? Their names, or where they ended up?” Reynir stared at the smudge, willing it to reveal its secrets.

The librarian shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell. The lady at the newspaper office said she vaguely remembered the story, though. She seemed to think they had gone into their grandmother’s custody.”

“Their grandmother…” But that didn’t make sense. Reynir looked back at the wedding announcement to confirm: neither Juha nor Anne-Mari had any parents listed. It was  _ possible  _ Jukka’s wife Tuulikki had a mother somewhere, but somehow, he doubted she was the one they meant.  _ Ukko-Pekka came back from the forest with two motherless children. That can’t be an accident. _

“Sorry I couldn’t find more,” the librarian was saying, heading back to her own desk.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Reynir said. She’d given him plenty to think about already.

* * *

 

In bed that night, Reynir watched the moonlight creep across his floor and thought about what he’d learned. A family with mysterious history: a man returned from nowhere, twins disappearing and reappearing across years, tragic “accidents” that felt anything but accidental. And all of it pointing, he hoped, to a man with piercing eyes and sharper tongue, whose touch was all gentleness and left-behind feathers.  _ Onni _ . No matter how strange the story became, Reynir kept coming back to him. He’d find the truth. He’d find the man, and somehow help him. He  _ would.  _

With that conviction foremost in his mind, Reynir’s restless thoughts gave way to equally troubled sleep.

Normally, Reynir’s dreams were fleeting things, so unremarkable that he never remembered even having them. But when he met Onni, all that changed. Night after night, he found himself walking in lonely landscapes, still asleep and yet somehow aware. Once, there’d been a boat. Mostly though he found himself on a rocky hillside surrounded by water, grazed by incurious sheep. It was a bit like where he’d grown up, and a bit like the magic forest. It  _ felt  _ magical, at any rate. And because it was magic, and because it was all a dream, Reynir could walk over the dark sea and explore if he wanted to. Usually, he did.

The sheep were quiet that night, so Reynir stepped out onto the water and set off in a random direction. Before long the mist parted in front of him to reveal a ring of trees. They grew up out of the water, slender trunks mirrored in the shifting surface. An assortment of boards floated in the center, roughly shaped into another circle. And someone was sitting there.

Not Onni. Nor Onni’s sister, Reynir realized, because the person facing him was far too slender, practically skin and bones beneath his fur cloak and threadbare clothing. His eyes, though, were cold chips of ice, and he scowled just like Onni had when he’d first shed his owl form. He held himself completely still except for his left hand, which rested on the head of the dog beside him. As Reynir watched, the dog let out a low whine, and the man ruffled its golden ears.

“Hi,” Reynir said, “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” the man interrupted. Reynir waited for him to say something else, but he just kept staring. Eventually, Reynir tried again.

“So I was wondering, what—”

“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice held a hint of a growl.

Reynir frowned. “But why? It’s not like this is real, I’m dreaming.” He was pretty sure he was dreaming, anyway. Dreams weren’t usually this vivid, and he didn’t usually meet weird mean people in them, but what else would it be?

The man let out a long sigh. “Just because you’re dreaming doesn’t mean it’s not real.” He folded his arms and looked away. “You’d better learn to tell the difference.”

“Why? Do I...does this have something to do with Onni?”

Another growl, though Reynir couldn’t tell if it came from the man or the dog.

“It does,” Reynir said. “All of these weird things that keep happening...they all lead to him.” Which was good, in a way, because it would be much more confusing if they  _ weren’t  _ related. But it still made him uneasy. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry, though. I just want to help!”

“Help?” The man was on his feet, hands balled into fists. “What good can  _ you  _ do? You’re not the first person who’s tried to break the curse. Or didn’t Onni tell you?”

Onni hadn’t, and Reynir’s face clearly told the man all he needed to know. “Looks like he didn’t. Well, I’ll tell you one thing.” He pointed at Reynir’s face. “ _ She _ won’t make it easy. And if she wins, you don’t just get to walk away. There are consequences.” The dog beside him whined again and leaned against his leg. The man grimaced as if in pain, then patted its head to quiet it. “You can’t make any mistakes. Not one. Or you’ll be worse off than Onni is.”

With that, the man made a complicated hand gesture, and the water trembled beneath Reynir’s feet. The trees twisted, snakelike, and twined around each other. In a moment they formed a solid wall of trunks that completely obscured the strange man and his dog. Reynir was alone.

“No mistakes.” That wouldn’t be easy. Reynir messed up all the time. But he’d do his best to remember. For Onni, he’d try.

* * *

 

The sun sank below the trees, and Reynir walked into the forest. There would be a full moon; there would, if everything he’d been told was true, be a hunt. The mysterious “she” of Onni’s curse would ride tonight, and Onni would ride with her. It was up to Reynir to turn that situation to his advantage.

For the moment, the forest was quiet. Not in the ordinary way, with leaves rustling and birds settling down for the night. The air stilled, the birds held their tongues, and a silence like a thousand captive breaths descended. Reynir stepped off the path, and even twigs neglected to snap beneath his feet.

He reached the center of the forest. He stopped. Waited. Watched. Hidden eyes watched him, too.

And then the silence shattered with a jingle of harness bells. Reynir tensed, strained to see through the growing gloom. Hoofbeats and braying hounds joined the fray, louder and louder until it was almost impossible to believe the forest had ever been quiet. When the first rider appeared, it was all Reynir could do to keep from jumping out right then and there. But it wasn’t Onni; the figure was too slim, too tall, the mask on their face too cruel. The next rider was too short, and the two after that, surrounded by dogs, weren’t Onni either. 

It became a game, almost, or would have if the stakes hadn’t been so high. The line of riders in their masks and cloaks were a test, Reynir realized. He had to stop the hunt if he was going to free Onni, and there was only one way he knew to stop it. But this time, he had to get the right rider, or it would all be for nothing.

Another rider passed. Another. Rider upon rider, none of them Onni, until suddenly one of them  _ was.  _ Reynir had a split second to acknowledge the feather cape, the white horse and the hint of blue fire under the owl mask—and then he was moving, darting from his hiding place to hurl himself at the rider. The horse shied. Someone screamed, and it might have been Reynir. Then he connected with a solid body and the two of them fell, striking the ground and rolling. Reynir couldn’t breathe enough to speak, couldn’t do anything but lie gasping on the dirt. His fingers curled tight into Onni’s shirt. 

One of Onni’s hands held onto Reynir; the other, he raised to push his mask aside. “You’re really set on this,” he whispered. It was impossible to tell if he was relieved or terrified. Reynir could only nod. Onni closed his eyes. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

The dust settled slowly, and the sound of hooves died away. The unnatural silence descended again. Cautiously, and without loosing his grip on Onni, Reynir raised his gaze. 

The assembled riders formed a loose semicircle, all of them looking down at Reynir and Onni. And in the center was a horse so white it glowed, with bared teeth and red eyes. Its rider wore no mask or hood; silvery hair cascaded past her shoulders and mingled with her moon-pale cloak. Her face, though set in grim lines, looked young and old all at once. 

Reynir found his breath. “You’re Onni’s...grandmother.” A shiver swept through the riders.

“And you’re the annoyance who’s trying to take what’s mine.” 

A surge of irritation cut through Reynir’s fear. “He doesn’t  _ belong  _ to you.”

Her face hardened. “Oh, but he does. His grandfather broke our bargain, and now his descendants must pay.”

“With their lives? For something  _ they  _ didn’t even do?” Reynir shook his head. “You people make terrible bargains.”

“There was nothing wrong with my bargain!” Light flared in her eyes, and her hair stirred in a breeze that touched no one else. “I have made a thousand bargains and dealt fairly. I have lived a thousand of your mortal lifetimes. I am Queen of the Fair Folk, and I do. Not. Make.  _ Mistakes _ .”

“Then what happened?” Reynir asked. As much as he wanted to know for Onni’s sake—any piece of information could help him break the curse—he also just wanted to know. The newspaper articles with their disjointed record of a family tied to the forest hadn’t been enough.

The queen seemed surprised by the question. She stared at him for a long time, eyes lingering on the protective runes embroidered on his coat and the way he clutched Onni’s shirt. And then she lifted her chin and began to speak.

“I bargained with a mortal man, strong in magic and wise in our ways. It was a simple deal: two children, twins. One to go with him when he left my realm, and one to stay.” Her fist clenched. “He betrayed me, and took both.”

“So you...took them back?” He thought of Ukko-Pekka’s mysterious death, and the missing-presumed-kidnapped children. If no one had thought to look for faerie magic, she could have gotten away easily. “But then...why did they come back to the mortal world?”

Onni shook his head, still pinned down by the weight of Reynir’s body. But whatever warning he meant to convey came too late.

“They left me,” the queen hissed, “because the treachery of mortal blood runs deep. They tried to hide, and hide their children.” Her gaze drifted over to a pair of mismatched riders: a stick-thin man with a lynx mask, and a small round woman whose mask was some kind of weasel. Reynir recognized her as Onni’s sister, and thought the lynx man looked a lot like the one he’d met in his dream. “But they couldn’t hide forever. I always come for what’s mine.”

“He’s not  _ yours!”  _ The words burst out of Reynir unchecked. The queen looked daggers at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “No matter what his parents did, or his grandfather, he’s his own person. And Onni didn’t make a bargain with you, did he?”

The queen’s eyes were a whirling storm. When she spoke, her voice was icy. “He has not. But a debt is owed.”

From beneath Reynir, Onni croaked out, “Yes. A debt.” He met Reynir’s startled gaze with a fierce glare of his own. “I keep telling you.”

“Your parents already paid with their lives, you don’t—” and then Reynir froze as the words sank in. “You don’t owe her a debt. You owe  _ me.”  _ He’d saved Onni from the dogs of the Wild Hunt, cared for him and fed him. By the laws of the Fair Folk, that meant something. He turned to face the queen, and said louder, “He owes me a debt. I intend to collect.”

“Do you?” The queen raised her arm. “Fine, then. He’s yours—if you can hold him.” Her hand dropped. All the horses of the Wild Hunt reared, and the dogs howled. And Onni writhed on the ground. 

Pure reflex was all that saved Reynir when the first change came. Onni was a man, and then he wasn’t. The fabric in Reynir’s hands turned to feathers, and the owl flapped and shrieked, trying to free itself. Reynir snapped his arms around it, pinning the wings and screwing his eyes tightly shut to avoid the beak. There was a sound of something shattering, and the body in his arms no longer wore feathers, but fur. Claws tore his shirt, and the owl’s cries turned to the scream of a lynx. Reynir ignored the pain and held on. Holding on was all he could do, as Onni’s body twisted itself from shape to shape with no sign of stopping. A stag, a wolf, a weasel that nearly slipped from his grasp—too many forms for Reynir to count, and still he clung to his love. 

“Onni, come back. You can fight her,  _ we  _ can fight her! Just hold on, hold on, hold—” his words were drowned by the animal wailing and the sounds of shattering out in the circle of riders. Then Onni was an owl again, battered and limp in his arms. Silence fell. Reynir held him as tight as he dared, not wanting to damage the delicate feathers more than he had to. Slowly, carefully, he looked up.

The ring of riders stared down at him, faces frozen in shock. He could see their faces clearly now, because their animal masks were gone, lying broken on the ground. And the queen, who had been so cool and remote, was breathing hard. “No,” she said. “NO! He is mine, you cannot—”

“All your masks are broken,” Reynir said. And then, without knowing how he knew, “Except for one.” He pointed to the queen’s face. Cracks were forming in her skin, angry lines like spiderwebs against her ghostly pallor. As he watched, a piece fell free.  _ Clink.  _ She raised her hand to her face, and another piece dropped away.

“No,” she whispered. More of her face broke off and rained down, shattered just like the masks. Underneath there was no blood, only white feathers. Her mouth opened to scream, but the sound warped and died away as she lost her human throat. For a terrible moment, she was some nightmare creature, human-shaped but wearing the skin and talons of an owl. And then she flapped her wings and rose, an owl in truth, and disappeared into the night.

In Reynir’s arms, Onni sighed. “You did it.” And then he laughed, and Reynir laughed too, because Onni was human-shaped again, solid and warm and holding on to Reynir just as tightly as Reynir held him. Still laughing, Reynir bent his head and kissed Onni, giddy with relief and exhaustion. Onni kissed him back, and when he pulled away, he was smiling. 

A shriek interrupted them. “Onni! It’s over, we’re free!” And then Onni’s sister was sliding off her horse and running towards them, and the rest of the Wild Hunt broke their silence. The clearing was full of people laughing, crying, talking over one another in their excitement. The queen was gone. The curse was broken. 

* * *

 

In the wake of the Faerie Queen’s fall, magic rippled outward like a stone dropped in a lake. A few of the Wild Hunt, freed of their servitude, went back to the lives they’d been stolen from. Others, held too long in the queen’s thrall, had nowhere to go, and either disappeared into the forest or stuck close to each other. One young man with golden hair actually refused to return to his family, and never left the side of the former lynx-man who Reynir had once met in a dream. Onni’s sister—whose name was Tuuri, Reynir learned—watched them fondly, and teased her cousin about the loyalty of dogs.

It was Tuuri who solved the problem of what to do with everyone, now that they couldn’t live in the forest and subsist on the queen’s magic. The school administration was bemused, and then alarmed, when the ragtag group walked out of the woods and demanded lodging. But when the reporters started to arrive, and the world took interest in their tale of tragic romance, kidnap and magic, the authorities decided there was nothing wrong with free publicity.

Reynir, for his part, was happy to leave the spotlight to others. He went back to his dorm room, back to his classes, and did his best to pick up the routine he’d abandoned ever since meeting Onni. Though of course, it was different now. Onni wasn’t a dream or a memory to haunt him. Onni was right there beside him.

“Have you made a decision yet?” Reynir leaned against the doorframe, pulling his boots off and shaking melted snow from his hair. The onset of winter made him all the more grateful for the warm haven of his room.

Onni turned from his seat by the window. “I...I think so.” He opened the blanket wrapped around him, offering an arm. Reynir hung up his coat and settled into the embrace, tugging the blanket until they were both cocooned. He rested his head on Onni’s shoulder.

“And? Are you going to enroll? Registration for next semester starts soon.”

Onni shook his head. “I think there’s too much I don’t know. I’m not like Tuuri, trying to soak up every little thing I’ve missed while we were...away.” His fingers tightened on Reynir’s ribs. “But one of the professors of magic theory has asked me to work with her. I’ll be a research assistant, for official purposes. For practical purposes, I’ll be telling her everything I can about the Fair Folk, and giving demonstrations if I can.” The magic that allowed him to become an owl had not left him—Onni said it was a gift of his fae blood, not part of the curse. “Maybe if mortals know more of the Fair Folk, it will be harder for someone like Her to do what she did.”

It was a good idea, and a good fit for Onni. But it still left some important questions unanswered.

“So I won’t have classes with you,” Reynir said. He looked away and tried not to let his disappointment show.

“No.” Onni must have heard it anyway, because he ran a hand through Reynir’s hair and down to his jaw. “But,” he said, tilting Reynir’s chin to face him, “I did get permission to live in student housing. Which means…”

“You can stay here? With me?” The smile on Onni’s face was all the answer Reynir needed.

In between kisses, Onni answered anyway. “Yes. I’m staying.”


End file.
